Six decades of motor sport were celebrated on Saturday evening (February 3) when the Barbados Rally Club (BRC) combined its Annual Prizegiving at Mahogany Ridge, St Thomas, with a celebration of its 60th Anniversary, reached in 2017. The outstanding contributions of four long-standing members were rewarded with Lifetime Achievement Awards, while a number of the Club’s commercial partners were also recognised, along with the marshals, medical support teams and the media.

Club Chairman Mark Hamilton said: “Any Club is only as good as its membership and its volunteer base. The success we have enjoyed over the past 60 years has not been an accident. We have been fortunate to be blessed with committed and enthusiastic persons, many of them descended from our Founders, and all of whom have thrown their weight behind the Club and its future.”

The Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented to: Biddy Barber, who first joined the Club as a teenager and has been a constant presence as a competitor, marshal and organiser, also a pioneer in the representation of Women in Motorsport; John Corbin, who was recognised as a passionate supporter of club motor sport and inspiration to the younger generation; John Sealy, a committee member as early as 1962, Club Chairman in the 1980s, Clerk of the Course at Bushy Park in the 1970s and 1990s and a Trustee now; and Roger Skeete, for being a relentless competitor and catalyst of the competitive environment, as well as in recognition of his outstanding individual achievements. Sealy also received an award from Barbados Motoring Federation (BMF) President Andrew Mallalieu to mark his recent retirement as BMF Vice-President.

Introducing the Partners Awards, Hamilton said: “We have been fortunate, in that there have been many contributions to the cause through the past 60 years. All, of whatever size or scope, have been among our building blocks, and all have been very important. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all, whether a current partner or a past supporter, for your contribution. As part of tonight’s proceedings we will recognise, in no particular order of significance, several of those who have played critical roles at critical times through the years.” Awards were presented to Automotive Art, Banks Holdings, Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc, Chefette Restaurants, Flow, Simpson Motors and Sol (Barbados) Ltd.

Although absent, as he was travelling on business, Jamaica’s Jeffrey Panton was one of the night’s big winners from the 2017 Driver’s & Class Championships; in addition to being the first overseas competitor to win the Champion Driver trophy, Panton was the WRC and 4wd Champion and was also awarded the Club’s annual tongue-in-cheek Golden Turkey Award, presented to acknowledge some lapse on the part of the competitor (in his case, a heart-stopping moment, when he struck a wall on the Padmore stage in the closing stages of Sol Rally Barbados).

Second in the overall standings was a career-best result for Andrew Jones, who also won SuperModified 3, while co-driver Lindsey Pilkington won the highest-placed Female Co-driver Award for the fourth straight year. Clubman 2 class-winner Stuart Garcia finished an impressive third overall, also collecting the Rookie Award and an Automotive Art voucher for $1,000. Fourth overall Barry Mayers was crowned the 2wd Champion, while the Richard Roett Trophy was presented to Stuart McChlery, who was also voted the season’s most spectacular driver by the media and presented with a framed image of his venerable Ford Escort MkI, first campaigned by his parents nearly 40 years ago.

In the Chefette MudDogs Safari Championship, Chris O’Neal won the Sextant Challenge Trophy as Champion Navigator for the fifth year in a row, with Leslie Alleyne winning an eighth Champion Driver title, again taking home the Peter Farmer Memorial Trophy. George and Garry Mendes won the new Shelbury Construction Trophy for MudDogs Driver Challenges, while Jamaica’s Christopher McFarlane won the Autocross title for the third straight year, with Tristan Gibbs the first Champion in the new 2wd category.